


Haemophobia

by Legendaerie



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adoptive Parents - Freeform, Background Sylvain/Felix - Freeform, Dad!Sylvain, Gen, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Noble Bastards, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), technically uncle Sylvain but he lyin about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23365801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: [N.a fear of blood.]In the middle of the war, Sylvain inherits his brother’s child.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 123
Kudos: 573





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Twitter went ABSOLUTELY FERAL for this concept so I expanded on it a little. Comments, as always, extremely appreciated!
> 
> Big shout-out to Sunnybone for being my beta and an incredibly vocal cheerleader when I was having an anxiety attack over this. <3

The dark of night and the weight of a cloak help hide the livery of the Empire, but Sylvain still recognized the stain of red on the woman’s clothing. She’d asked for him at the gates as _Miklan’s brother,_ horse foamy with sweat along his side and a child in her arms. He’d come, of course. And here he stands now, holding his breath and wishing he hadn’t lived through the Empire’s invasion at all.

“She has your family’s Crest and her mother is dead,” says the woman at the gates. She’s barely Annette’s age, but her eyes are dark, old and bitter like dry wine. “Her name is Enfys. She belongs with you.”

Sylvain takes the sleepy bundle, small and so, so heavy, and meets the Professor’s gaze.

“Don’t tell the others,” he murmurs, and goes back inside the monastery.

* * *

There’s not a nursery in Garreg Mach anymore so Sylvain spends the night in the infirmary, watching the child sleep. She’s four and a half, her aunt had said, and her hair was ginger like her father’s. She’d taken in the child after her mother died a month ago and had the girl tested for a Crest. A Gautier would never have survived in the Empire.

He hasn’t asked if she’d loved Miklan. He doesn’t know if he had himself. But there was something there, at least, and it stirs up his thoughts like mud in a pond, clouding his mind with sediment and sentiment.

The Professor knows the child isn’t his. Manuela suspects, probably; he doesn’t think she bought his story. Miklan’s bloody crimes are well known in Faergus. If he can, he’d like to spare her the shame. He can shoulder the blame better than a child can, but it’s not—

Sylvain slams a fist into the wall beside him, giving himself a moment to be angry. One more mess Miklan left behind for him to clean up. One more way from beyond the grave to ruin his little brother’s life. He doesn’t want a daughter, not now and definitely not with a Crest.

And yet.

The child stirs on the cot, waking up slowly. “Mommy?” she asks, voice high and unsteady.

“Mommy isn’t here,” he says carefully, putting on a gentle smile. “Your aunt asked me to take care of you. My name is Sylvain, and… I’m your dad.”

Enfys sits up, staring at him in the soft light of the lamps.

“See?” He reaches up to play with a lock of hair. “We match.”

Dark eyes - he thinks they might be green - well with tears and overflow in absolute silence.

“Fuck,” Sylvain curses under his breath. She really is a Gautier. 

“I want Mommy,” Enfys chokes, her voice cracking and it hurts to hear, such love and affection and pain. He remembers loving his parents that much, but barely. Distantly.

“I know,” is all he can think to say. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to settle for me.”

“I don’t want you,” she snaps. “Go away.”

He doesn’t mean to laugh, but he does; softly, painfully. “Yeah,” he agrees, standing. “Me neither.”

Sylvain stands outside in the hallway the rest of the night until the sun rises and the light shifts from pale yellow to gold. Then he cracks the door open and peeks inside.

Enfys is asleep, curled up under a blanket. She looks so small, and so alone. A feeling wells up in the back of his throat and threatens to choke him.

He shuts the door.

“Fuck,” he says again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

* * *

The kitchen staff is kind enough to make a late breakfast for Enfys and Sylvain, but it isn’t a meal in peace. The girls swarm him, all at once.

“Sylvain!” Annette calls from across the room. He looks up from his half-finished porridge - he’d gotten the same food as Enfys to try to convince her to eat, but it doesn’t seem to be working. All she’s done is pick at her food and scowl - and takes the sight of them in. Annette is curious, Mercedes is serene, and Ingrid is furious. At least something is still the same.

“We were wondering where you were when you didn’t show up for breakfast. Ohhh,” and Annette breaks focus to coo, “who is this?”

“This is Enfys,” he says, swallowing a mouthful of porridge and trepidation, “my… my daughter.”

Mercedes settles down next to Sylvain, silent and graceful as mist on a pond. “That breakfast doesn’t look nearly sweet enough. Would you like some candied fruits, Enfys?”

“Sylvain,” Ingrid asks, strained. “May I borrow you for a moment?”

He gets up, his seat immediately stolen by Annette who looks ready to vibrate with excitement at the idea of talking to Enfys, and almost doesn’t look back. But Enfys is watching him, her dark eyes wide.

They’re green. Her mother’s eyes.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells her, giving her a grin, as he follows Ingrid out of the dining hall and outside.

He expects a slap, but the sigh is almost worse. 

“What have you done?” Ingrid asks, her words heavy with anger and grief. “How old is she?”

Sylvain braces himself. “Almost five.”

“ _Sylvain,_ ” her words cracking with horror as she tries to keep her voice down.

He keeps his mouth shut and his eyes down. 

“Maybe now, you’ll learn that your actions have consequences,” she mutters, “and stop being so suicidal in battle now that you have someone who depends on you.”

He sneaks a glance up at her. Her arms have crossed but she doesn’t look as mad anymore. Good. He’s probably safe. “Might need you to help me a bit around the stables. I don’t— really know how much time you’re supposed to spend with kids, since, you know,” he makes a face which is supposed to convey _I am trying very hard not to raise her in the way I was raised._

Ingrid raises her eyebrows in understanding and rolls her head back on a sigh. “Damn it all. I’m still mad at you, you know. And you’d better tell Felix and his Highness before the rumor mill does.”

“I know, I know.”

He does, after breakfast (which was mostly done by the time he came back, Enfys talking with Mercedes and Annette in her serious little way. He can see Miklan in her already, in the shape of her jaw and the straightness of her brow) and it doesn’t go well.

Ashe is unconcerned - or quietly apathetic - but smiles when he talks to Enfys, and Dedue is tense and quiet. Sylvain has to brace himself to introduce his niece to the other two, and decides to get Felix over with first since he knows just how bad that one is going to be.

Sure enough, Felix’s eyes flash fire and he storms off before Sylvain can finish speaking, his shoulders a sharp, furious line and his clenched fists trembling. Enfys huffs and tosses her head and pretends not to care.

Dimitri is in the cathedral, as usual; slumped over in front of the crumbled stone, muttering to himself. They approach quietly, carefully. For the first time that day, Enfys voluntarily takes Sylvain’s hand.

“Hello, Your Highness,” Sylvain says. A head turns towards him, slow and deliberate as a bull. As a wolf. “I wanted to introduce my… my daughter. Enfys, this is Prince Dimitri.”

He bites his lip and prays she finds tact and grace, somehow.

“You’re a _Prince_?”

And there it goes.

Dimitri stands and approaches them both; Enfys seems to have nerves of steel and watches him approach with clear evergreen eyes.

“Hello,” says Dimitri, his voice soft and careful and _his_ for the first time in years. Sylvain holds his breath, terrified of breaking the spell. “I apologize. I’m not a very impressive Prince.”

Enfys meets his gaze as he kneels in front of her and extends a hand. 

She looks up at Sylvain, then back down again. Then she shuffles behind Sylvain, taking his hand with him. He can see Dimitri’s shoulders sag, but then—

Enfys lets go of Sylvain’s left hand and takes his right, then accepts Dimitri’s offered shake.

“Hello, Prince Dimitri,” she says with utmost gravitas. “My name is Enfys Fontane.”

“It is a—“ he takes a shuddering breath, “a pleasure to meet you, miss Enfys Fontane Gautier.”

As they head back to the main hall of the monastery, Enfys only says one other thing:

“I liked his cape. Can I have a cape?”

“Whatever you want,” he says, his steps and heart light, and he thinks he might mean it.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the month passes in a blur. Enfys takes up almost all of his time, even when the rest of the Blue Lions pitch in. Today it’s Annette with her in the library, helping her read and occasionally singing parts of the lesson to her as Sylvain tries to catch up on his Reason training.

“How goes it?” Lindhardt asks, leaning into Sylvain’s line of sight over the top of his book.

“Well, I don’t think she’s decided if she likes me or not,” he says, “but I’m used to girls who are a little cold to me, so that’s familiar territory.”

The green-haired mage hums, taking the seat next to Sylvain and watching the two girls on the other side of the library.

“I’ve heard she has your Crest,” he says, quiet and casual.

Sylvain’s anger surprises even him. “Don’t you dare.”

“All right, all right,” and Lindhardt starts to push back his cuticles, one at a time. “I won’t ask again. Congratulations, though. You have an Heir for your parents.”

“They won’t touch her, either,” he murmurs under his breath. “I’ll raise her better than they did.”

“Of course you will. But now you can marry whoever you want, right? Like Felix, if he ever talks to you again.”

Sylvain’s breath catches in his throat. “How…”

“Oh, he’s _always_ been in a bad mood, but even Caspar has noticed how he refuses to look at you behind your back anymore.”

“Not that, I—“ he clears his throat, his voice hoarse. “Anyway, I won’t let her Crest affect how she gets treated.”

Lindhardt tilts his head to the side and studies Sylvain. His eyes are as deep and still as the wells that Sylvain forces himself to stare into, sometimes, gripping the stone sides for dear life and assuring himself that no one can throw him into those yawning depths anymore. (It doesn’t work. He still has dreams.)

“Huh,” he says.

Sylvain feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “What?”

“Nothing,” Lindhardt says, looking away. “Just… try to remember you can’t control what other people think.”

It seems like sound advice. Sylvain rests his chin in his hand and watches Enfys watch Annette. She’s so serious, for being so little. A side effect of being a child with only a mother to raise her, perhaps.

He wants to make her happy; a sudden thought, overwhelming him with its intensity. He wants to make her smile.

“I need to find Cyril,” he says, standing abruptly. “I’ll be right back.”

He leaves Lindhardt at the table (who gives him a baffled look behind his back) and hunts down the young Almyran man. His list of materials is short but detailed, and Cyril agrees to provide what he can by the end of the week.

An hour or so later, caught up with what he’d missed with the Professor, Sylvain joins Annette and Enfys at the table. Ashe had come over at some point with a stack of drawing supplies, and nods in greeting.

“What’d we learn today?” Sylvain asks. He sits up a little taller to try to get a look at what she’s drawing. He doesn’t have the faintest clue what it’s supposed to be.

Enfys doesn’t look up from her work, earnestly scribbling with charcoal on parchment paper. “Knights,” she says.

Sylvain gives Ashe a sideways look.

“And do you like knights?” he asks dryly, anticipating the answer.

“Yes,” Enfys says, and Ashe raises a challenging eyebrow as if to dare Sylvain to complain, “but I don’t think I like horses.”

“Horses?”

“No. Auntie Laothos has a wyvern. I like wyverns.”

Laothos. The woman he met at the gate. Sylvain clears his throat and pretends to reel back with offense.

“I like horses,” he says, “they’re my _second_ favorite things to ride.”

Annette kicks him under the table. It’s still worth it.

“You should get a wyvern,” Enfys says, then seems to finish her art. She slides it across the table to Sylvain, finally meeting his eyes. She has charcoal on her cheeks. “Here.”

Sylvain tilts his head and squints. “Is this… a wyvern?”

“No. It’s you on a horse. Ashe said you have a horse.”

“Oh,” he coos, “I see.” He starts to push it back to her, but she pushes it back with a little frown.

“It’s for you.”

“It is?”

She nods, then immediately grabs another sheet and resumes drawing. “Yeah. Now I’m gonna do one for Annette.”

“You’re so sweet,” the mage gushes, exchanging delighted looks with Ashe. “Just like her father, right?”

He can’t help his flinch, but at least no one was looking at him. “You're too kind,” he says through a tight throat. Maybe he can blame it on the charcoal dust.

* * *

But despite it all, they are still in the middle of a war. Sylvain is still a soldier. And he has to report at the gates of Garreg Mach at dawn at the end of the month.

Enfys, rubbing her eyes, has followed him to the dormitory stairs. She’s been placed in Dimitri’s old room (he had volunteered it, in a brief moment of clarity, claiming that there’s no point in having it since he no longer sleeps) and she had emerged just as he and Felix were leaving. 

“Good morning,” he says softly, hearing Felix stop a few steps ahead of him. “Did we wake you up?”

“Are you going to go fight?”

Sylvain doesn’t know why he looks at Felix in this moment, but he does. Felix breaks eye contact first, shifting his weight but waiting for Sylvain anyway. He turns back to his niece - his daughter - and lowers himself into a kneel.

“I am,” he says.

“Against the Empire?”

He nods.

Enfys frowns, holding her hands with her arms tight against her sides. He’s getting better at reading her body language now, and he goes out on a limb.

“Are you upset that I’m leaving?”

She nods, her frown deepening, then buckling under the weight of her emotions. Evergreen eyes overflow with tears again but she doesn’t move, not even to lift her eyes from the floor.

“I’ll be back. I promise.”  He gives her shoulder a squeeze with his hand, but that only makes more tears fall. 

Shit.

“Will you draw a wyvern for me while I’m gone?” he asks, thinking fast. “I bet Ashe can get more charcoal for you if you ask him nicely.”

Enfys nods, then steps over quickly to hug him. It’s over before he can even react, just a tiny pair of arms wrapping around his neck then she’s gone again.

“Okay,” she says.

“That’s my girl. Go back to sleep, okay? We’ll be back before you know it.”

Enfys obeys, slipping back into her room - into Dimitri’s room - and Sylvain pulls himself to his feet. When he turns around, he’s surprised to see Felix still there, watching him closely.

“Is that a promise you can keep?” he asks, voice quiet.

Sylvain forces himself to shrug. “I’ve kept ours so far, haven’t I?”

He passes Felix in the hall and heads down the stairs, only throwing a glance back half a flight down. Felix is following him, lighter on his feet without all the armor Sylvain wears and considerably quieter for it as well. He’s watching Sylvain again, but looks away when their eyes meet.

At the turn in the middle of the flight, Sylvain speaks up.

“What do you want to ask me?” he prompts. They’ve known each other too long for him not to sense the tension there, and he’s always been too much of a masochist to leave anything be.

It’s his own fault, then, that when Felix stops holding back it cuts him to the bone.

“Did you love her?”

Sylvain frowns, confused.

“The child’s mother,” Felix clarifies quietly. “Did you love her?”

And here lies the problem with this whole ruse; Sylvain can paint beautiful pictures with his words with no effort and no thought, has already fabricated a false past for himself and Enfys and passed it on to a few busybodies who have asked similar questions, but—

He can’t lie. Not to Felix. Not here; in the stone stairwell unlit by either dawn or candlelight, where Felix is a ghost a few steps behind and above him, more a memory than a shape in the darkness. Not ever.

“No,” he forces out, his voice a pained whisper. “I didn’t.”

Felix’s shoulder hits him roughly on his way past, and Sylvain has to pull himself together before he can follow his friend to the gates.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated the chapter number, because I’m having fun and also have APPARENTLY a lot more things to say than I previously thought. Oh well!

Sylvain almost breaks his promise.

He takes an axe blow to the thigh near the end of the fight, one that hits his horse too - or so he thinks, and writes off the volume of blood as the result of two injuries instead of one. Then he’d fainted clean off the horse from a lack of blood and woken up with Lindhardt leaning over him, stained red all the way up to his elbows.

“That was close,” the mage had said. “Be careful.”

Riding back to Garreg Mach makes his leg ache and his teeth grit but he makes it there without passing out.

Ingrid hits him in the shoulder with the butt of her lance when they’re within sight of the gates. “Look.”

“Ow, what?”

“Look,” she repeats, pointing with the blade of her weapon at the small shape barely visible around the corner by the fish pond.

Sylvain sucks in a breath. He raises one hand in greeting, waiting; then Enfys turns and bolts out of sight.

“She’s awfully cute,” says Leonie on his other side. “She must have gotten that from her mother.”

He’s too caught up with agreeing with her to catch the veiled insult until they’re untacking the horses in the stables. By then it’s too late, and standing has reminded him of the nick in his thigh bone from where the axe cut in. Breathing through the pain is difficult.

“Sylvain?” Ingrid asks. “Are you okay?”

He nods. “Just gotta be careful how I move.”

“Here,” and she bustles over, deftly undoing the buckles on his horse’s armor, “I’ll untack her for you. Go find your daughter.”

Sylvain forces a smile - genuinely pleased, but in a lot of pain. “Is this all it takes for you to be nice to me?”

Ingrid rolls her eyes. “Get going,” she teases. It seems she’s forgiven him for having a child at 20. One down. An infinite number of judgemental people to go.

To his surprise, however, it’s not Hilda watching Enfys. It’s Dedue, kneeling in the greenhouse as Enfys peppers him with questions about plants. She seems completely unbothered by his tall, broad stature and the face he’s always claimed children find unsettling. 

Sylvain’s chest heaves with relief and affection, even as he uses the Lance of Ruin like a walking stick to help him along.

“Hi there,” he says, grinning in the doorway. Enfys looks at him then looks away quickly. “I’m home. Do you wanna come give me a hug?”

“I guess,” she says, handing a flower to Dedue and walking over quickly. He kneels and lets her hug him again, but she makes a face. “You’re so cold and pointy.”

“Oh, sorry. That’s the armor. It keeps me safe in battle.”

“Thank you, Armor,” Enfys states, very seriously, as she pats his shoulder pauldron. 

His heart seizes for the second time in as many minutes. Without thinking, he grabs her face and plants a kiss on her forehead. She squeals, but there’s a little smile on her face when he lets her go.

Sylvain shifts his weight and conceals the stab of pain that shoots up his thigh.

“You wanna do a favor for your—“ his tongue catches on the word, even now. “Your dad?”

“Maybe,” she says, tilting her head to the side. Her hair is just long enough to touch her shoulders when she does that. 

He turns her gently around by the shoulders. “Can you see the lady by the pond, with the light hair?” he asks, pointing to Mercedes.

“Yeah.”

“Would you mind asking her to come over here?”

Enfys nods and trots off. Sylvain takes the opportunity to pull himself to his feet, swearing viciously under his breath. Dedue assists him, lifting Sylvain up as though he weighed little more than his niece.

“May I ask you a question?” Dedue asks once Sylvain can bear his own weight. 

“You just did.”

Dedue waits.

After a second, Sylvain sighs. “Yeah, yeah. What is it?” he asks, leaning on the Lance of Ruin, watching Enfys and Mercedes chat.

“Is Enfys really your daughter?”

Sylvain freezes.

“I ask because I remember your expression when you had to kill your older brother. How your face looks when you talk about him.”

His grip on the Lance of Ruin tightens.

“It’s the same face you wear, sometimes, when you watch her from afar.”

It hurts to walk but Sylvain retreats several steps inside the greenhouse, where their voices are less likely to carry.

“You can’t,” he chokes, one hand on Dedue’s shoulder to hold him upright, “tell _anyone._ To everyone else, Miklan was just a criminal, but… to me, he was my _brother._ As awful as he was, there were days that I loved him, and pitied him, and missed who he could have been.”

Sylvain takes a deep breath. “Nothing that Miklan did was her fault. I don’t want to see her treated poorly for it. I’m not a good person, but…” he grits his teeth, struggling to stand, and shakes his head. “I’m alive. I can change. He never will.”

Dedue steadies him, just as he’s steadied Dimitri for all these years. After a pause, he says, “I know what it’s like to be judged for your bloodline. For your parents. But this is a heavy secret to bear alone. And it won’t hold forever.”

Sylvain nods, his breath coming in short gasps. “I know, I know, but maybe if I can get through the war—“

“Oh, goodness, Sylvain!”

He turns his head towards the greenhouse door. Mercedes is there, with Enfys beside her wearing an expression of terror. 

“What?” he asks.

“She didn’t tell me you were hurt!”

Sylvain takes in a breath through this nose and smells blood. Looks down and sees it spreading from the gaps of his thigh armor, violent and vibrant against the steel plates.

“It’s not that bad,” he says, though he can’t let go of Dedue. Enfys is staring at him, pale. He doesn’t want her to see how much it hurts. “Just need a little heal—“

“And some bedrest,” she says, her voice soft but her will made of tempered steel. Wheels of light appear around her wrists. “Dedue, will you help me get him upstairs in a minute? Don’t worry, Enfys. I’ll put your dad back together for you.”

As he’s helped up the stairs, he leaves a staggered trail of crimson footprints behind him.

* * *

  
Mercedes makes good on her threat to keep him in bed, but she is at least kind enough to teach him what he asks. Cyril delivers him the velvet he’d requested, along with a pair of pale white rabbit pelts freshly washed and tanned. By lamplight, Sylvain sews, and is careful to stash his project whenever Enfys knocks on his door.

He can always tell when it’s her. It comes from so low down. Tonight it’s awfully late for her to be awake, and his mouth twists in unease.

“Come in,” he calls, and the door opens slowly. Huge eyes dark and silent as the pine forests in midwinter night regard him.

She doesn’t say anything. Just stares at him, looking up and down. He’s propped up on pillows and covered in blankets to his rib cage - his project safely tucked away out of sight - and he waits.

For the briefest moment, she reminds him of Felix.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks. Not waiting for an answer, he pats the side of his bed. Enfys approaches and climbs up with surprising acrobatic skill, her back to him as her legs drape over the side of the mattress.

“I had a scary dream.”

He doesn’t know what he should do, so he offers her his hand. She takes it, wrapping her tiny hand around two of his fingers and squeezing like she’d fall off the edge of the bed without him.

“I dreamed you got cut up like Mommy did. And you were bleeding again.”

It’s the first she’s spoken of her mother since her aunt delivered her to Garreg Mach - the first time she’s opened up to him voluntarily since he met her.

He squeezes her hand back, and aches, and waits.

“I hate this stupid war,” she says, and for the first time he might see himself in her profile in candlelight. “Why can’t everyone just be nice and talk to each other?”

He chuckles. “Yeah. I wish they could. But sometimes people don’t want to change their minds or listen. They just want to be angry at each other.”

“It’s stupid.”

“It is.”

They’re quiet for a minute, each presumably lost in though. Sylvain breaks the silence first, struggling to find the nerve to speak.

“Did Mommy ever… talk about me?”

Enfys looks at the ceiling, tilting her head to the side. “Sometimes.”

“What did she say?”

“That you were tall, and very strong. She said your mommy and daddy and brother were mean to you, and that you hated them so much that you left her.”

The hand not holding hers curls into a fist. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. In his own way, Miklan was a victim too.

Enfys turns to look at him. “Why do you have to go and fight?”

Sylvain chews on the inside of his lip as he thinks. “I go out and fight,” he says carefully, “because I’m good at it. And if I go and do it, then other people don’t have to. And they get to stay home with their families.”

“But I don’t want you to go!” She grabs his upper arm, turning around to fix him with those huge, dark eyes. “I don’t want you to leave again, or to die like Mommy. I want you to stay here!”

He would rather be impaled by his own Lance of Ruin than say what he has to say. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

“I bet that’s what you said last time,” she snaps, and just that quickly jumps off the bed. Before Sylvain can grab her, she’s gone, slamming his door closed. Another slam follows, then the sounds of sobbing.

“Fuck,” he says to the darkness, laying on his back, feeling regret rising to choke him like water. He shouldn’t have agreed to take Enfys in. She’s right. He is a liar, and he is just going to leave her one way or another. He should have tried harder to find her a real home, with a better parent than some no-good philandering nobleman.

Enfys sleeps. Sylvain does not. But in the morning, his gift for her is finished.


	4. Chapter 4

“She hates me, Mercedes.”

“Mm hmm.”

“She absolutely hates me. And the worst part? Everything she said about me was right.” He throws up his hands, letting them drop back down on the bed beside him.

Mercedes carefully bends the knee of his injured leg. “Mm hmm.”

“I’m a horrible dad. I can’t— ow ow ow!” He winces as Mercedes pushes his knee up towards his chest. “Hey now, save those kinds of moves for the second date, Mercie.”

She smiles at him, as serene and unmoved by his pleas as the paintings of the goddess that used to look down on the occupants of the cathedral. “I need to make sure your injury won’t re-open again before I let you leave your room. So I have to test your range of motion.”

“Can you not fold me in half when you do it?”

“No,” she says, still smiling, and pulls his knee towards her.

He grits his teeth, but the scar tissue seems to hold. No spots of red seep out to soak through his sheets, and eventually it hurts a little less when Mercedes contorts his legs into impossible positions. It’s a little after dinner time, and Enfys has already been put to bed. She sleeps sounder than any child he’s heard of, but she might not sleep through his howls of discomfort if he keeps them up. Sylvain locks his jaw closed and breathes through his nose, short and strained.

“Anger is often based on fear, you know,” Mercedes offers as she starts to knead at the muscle in his thigh. “Some children can get angry when they’re scared because they’re a little too young to process things well. Adults do it too, but—“

“Fuckfuckfuck, can you not—“

“If she’s mad that you have to go fight, she probably loves you very much and is scared of losing you.”

Finally, she gives him a break, and Sylvain drops his head back onto the pillows. Normally when he’s this sore and sweaty in bed he’s at least had an orgasm. “Doesn’t mean I’m not going to fuck it up, though. If I die out there…”

“Then don’t.”

He rolls his eyes. “Great idea. I’ll tell the Imperial Army not to kill me out there. I’m sure they’ll be very understanding and line up to be disemboweled.”

“Just be careful. Trust the people around you. Don’t try to take on everything alone.” Mercedes finally lets him go, sitting up with a satisfied smile. “And with that, I officially clear you for duty.”

She pats his hip and stands, leaving him on his back in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

Was that what Dedue meant about a heavy burden to bear alone? Is that why he hesitates to tell his friends who Enfys’ real father is - a lack of trust?

He lays there for several more minutes, struggling to untangle the knot of feelings in his chest. When he realizes it’s too tight to unravel, he gives up, throws his legs over the side of the bed and stands.

If he can’t sleep, he might as well do something worth doing.

* * *

  
The sound of steel on wood rings out in the training ground in a steady rhythm.

Step. Strike. Step. Strike.

It’s approaching midnight. His thoughts have finally quieted down, but his body is still burning with excess energy. Too many days laid in bed; too many worries. He needs to make sure that he’s in shape enough to come back to Enfys and everyone else.

Step. Strike. Step. Strike.

He’s been at it for almost three hours, shirt hanging open and sticking to him in several places from sweat. Pushing his hair back from his brow, he steps away from the heavily dented training dummy to take a drink from the water jug on one of the benches nearby.

“Glad you see you’re finally serious about something,” comes a voice from the other end of the grounds.

Sylvain turns, and it only feels right to see Felix silhouetted against the night sky outside.

“How long have you been there?” he asks, pouring the remaining water over his head and shaking it.

“Long enough.”

When Sylvain opens his eyes, Felix is halfway across the floor, drawing his sword.

“Spar with me,” he says, his voice low and even. “I’m a better partner than a training dummy.”

“How kind of you,” Sylvain replies, and were it anyone or anywhere else it’d sound sarcastic. But this is Felix, and at the end of the day he’s missed spending time with his friend.

In reply, Felix raises the end of Sylvain’s lance with the tip of his sword, coaxing both their weapons into a readied position. 

Step, parry, sidestep. Strike and miss, reel back and block. Step forward, step back. 

“You’re larger than me. Use that to your advantage,” Felix murmurs, watching their weapons. “Your leg still hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Can’t get anything past you,” Sylvain puffs.

“Yes you can. Push a little harder.”

As acidic and temperamental as he can be, Felix is a surprisingly good teacher. Sylvain does his best to listen, not only because the advice is sound but because he understands the effort behind it. The intent. Felix is trying, in his own way, to help.

Slash, stab and spin the sword out of the way. Jab with the butt of the lance to trip, miss, use the momentum to spin the blade back around.

“Did you just roll that—“

“I did,” grins Sylvain. “Wanna see me do it again?”

The subtle softness in Felix’s eyes belies his next words. “Show off. Be careful doing that in a real fight. Easier to disarm you if your weapon is balanced on your arm instead of held in your hand.”

“And yet, you couldn’t.”

Felix raises an eyebrow, melting back into his ready stance. “Want to bet I can’t?”

Step, sidestep, sweep the legs and miss. Strike again, the clang of steel on steel ringing out like wind chimes instead of bells of war, familiar and almost comforting.

They’ve known each other for too long to make much headway in beating each other. It’s more of a dance than a fight, and despite his exhaustion Sylvain feels light for the first time in days.

Felix speaks up again; unusual for him to be so talkative. “You’re working this hard for the girl, right?”

“For Enfys, yes.”

“Hmm.” Felix’s eyes are fixed on their weapons, his concentration on their match yet unbroken. “I suppose— if that’s what it takes for you to take your training seriously, I shouldn’t complain. She’s… pretty cute, too.”

There’s a suggestion of a smile on his face. If Sylvain’s heart wasn’t already pounding from the exercise, it would be now for sure.

Lindhardt’s observation from weeks ago springs to his mind as their weapons cross, locking them together face to face.

“She is, isn’t she?” He says, lowering his voice. “I haven’t told my parents about her yet, but I’m sure they’d be happy she has our Crest. Might let me marry whoever I wanted.”

Felix’s eyes flash wide, his head jerking up to meet Sylvain’s gaze as suddenly as if someone grabbed his hair and yanked it back.

Sylvain holds that startled, vulnerable ochre gaze, and speaks with gentle deliberation.

“I could even marry a  _ man _ .”

He can feel the strength leave Felix’s arms but doesn’t push back; he holds steady, holds still and watches a hundred emotions cross Felix’s face as he stares at Sylvain. Slowly, red begins to creep up his neck to his cheeks, his ears, all the way to his hairline.

“Oh,” Felix says, his voice strangled almost to incoherency as he finally breaks Sylvain’s eye contact. “I. I see. I—“

Felix takes a step back and lowers his sword, clearing his throat. He throws a glance over his shoulder as if to check Sylvain is still there, looks away and clears it again.

“Well. All the more reason for you to stay alive, then, huh?”

Sylvain shrugs. “Assuming he says yes, of course.”

“He probably would,” says Felix, returning to the middle of the room with his composure wavering but there. “But you should wait until after the war to get married.”

His hands are shaking.

So are Sylvain’s.

Step, side step, lock.

“Do you think he’d let me kiss him?” Sylvain asks when they’re close, breathing in the scent of sweat and dust and cedar soap.

Felix’s gaze drops, but not as far low as before. “Maybe,” he says lowly, looking up at Sylvain again. “It would be worth a try.”

And Felix lowers his sword.

He’s careful about it, for once in his life; slides his fingertips along Felix’s neck to nestle along his jaw and tilt his head up, feeling the frantic pulse just under the skin fluttering against his palm. Leans in to brush their lips together, one last breath before the plunge. A want that he had buried for decades clawing its way up out of his chest, the edges catching painfully in his throat, as his eyes flutter closed.

Felix closes the distance first, pulling Sylvain down by the collar of his open shirt still saturated with sweat and water, pressing their lips together with a soft, desperate noise that Sylvain swallows and stores in the hollow of his chest the want left behind, feeling it burning into a need. It’s just a kiss, just a press of closed chapped lips against lips but Sylvain feels like he’s been pushed off the Goddess Tower. He loves Felix, has loved and will love and maybe now he can let himself act on it.

But it’s Felix, again, who pulls away first. “One kiss,” he rasps, voice gone rough and low. “You’re— you’re tired, aren’t you?”

He is. All the way down to his bones. “Not very.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Felix whispers, pressing a kiss to the corner of Sylvain’s mouth. “I was watching you train for half an hour.”

Sylvain grins. “Really? If I’d known, I would have taken my shirt all the way off. Give you a show.”

Felix lets out a strangled noise again and lets Sylvain kiss him again. And again. And again.

“Come to bed with me?” Sylvain asks. “Just to sleep. I won’t— I won’t  _ impugn your honor  _ or anything.”

The breath Felix snorts into Sylvain’s throat makes him shudder and rethink his promise. “As if I give a fuck what the nobility who let  _ Cornelia _ take power would think of us.”

“That doesn’t sound like a no.”

“It’s because it isn’t.” Felix pulls away but brings Sylvain with him, leading him off the training grounds to the bathhouse and eventually upstairs.

He’d intended to wrap his arms around Felix and tuck him under his chin, but Felix slips behind Sylvain’s back on the narrow cot.

“I’ve got you,” he says quietly. “You have enough people to protect right now. It’s my turn.”

In answer, throat too tight for words, Sylvain slides his hand over the hand at his waist and laces their fingers together.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is almost double the length of all my other chapters but like. man. who am i to deny you guys anything.
> 
> last true chapter. epilogue coming soon.

Something prods him in the side, and Sylvain groans. “Ten more minutes.”

“Your daughter needs you.”

“What dau—“ Sylvain sits bolt upright, narrowly missing headbutting Felix on his way up, and comes to terms with all the recent developments in his life at once.

“Ohhh,” he croons, not prepared to deal with Felix with his dark hair let loose and tangled from sleep around his face, catching the sunlight in a few strands like threads of midnight sky gilded in gold, “ _good morning.”_

He leans in for a kiss and gets a palm to his face. “Child,” Felix says.

“What?” Sylvain twists his head to see Enfys scowling in the doorway, her hair already brushed and braided, matching Ingrid beside her all the way down to their suspicious looks.

“Good morning, boys,” Ingrid says, her tone tinged in warning. “We’ll wait for you in the hallway so you can _be decent._ ”

The door closes. Sylvain collapses back onto the bed.

“We should have had sex,” Sylvain comments, “Ingrid assumed we did anyway. Kind of a waste to have not, you know?”

Felix climbs off him, throwing the blankets back as he goes. “Didn’t realize last night was such a _disappointment_ to you,” he says, but it’s more teasing than tart. Sylvain relaxes and watches him pull on his shirt, then his jacket, deft fingers pulling all the details together. “Get up. We’ll leave you behind.”

“All right, all right,” Sylvain hums and follows suit. It takes him a little longer on account of all the armor, but Felix helps him into it and even lets Sylvain kiss him on the cheek (but not the mouth, growling at Sylvain’s morning breath and pushing him off.) The last thing he grabs is the gift Mercedes helped him make for Enfys, wrapped loosely in a parcel.

Ingrid and Enfys are waiting for them in the hallway and together they descend the stairs. Sylvain watches Enfys bounce down each step, her little ginger head barely past his knee. He knows he must have been that small at one point - Miklan too - but it’s hard to remember those days. They slip between his fingers like minnows from cupped hands in a river, like embers on the wind that burn and vanish at the touch. 

What all he does remember, hurts.

They reach the grounds outside, where the sun is shining rose-pink and new on the well trodden grass, catching on the morning dew and sparkling. It’s a little chilly this morning, and Sylvain untucks the parcel from under his arm.

“Enfys,” he says, stopping and offering it to her. “This is for you.”

Enfys furrows her little brow to look at it. He wonders if she really finds so many things as unpleasant as Miklan had, or if she simply has trouble seeing. He’ll have to ask Hanneman or Manuela how to test for that. In the meantime he waits, holding his breath, as she tears open the wrapping.

“Oh,” she says, revealing the white and purple cloak. “Just like Prince Dimitri.”

With a little fumbling, she drapes it over her tiny shoulders, shrugging to bury her face in the soft fur. “Thank you,” she says. “I like it.”

His shoulders sag. “Good,” he breathes, smiling down at her. “Good.”

At breakfast, Sylvain rests his chin in his hand and watches Enfys from across the table. She had insisted on sitting next to Hilda and keeps getting distracted from her food to talk to the woman next to her.

“Do you have any more wyvern scales for me?” she asks.

“Not today, goober,” and Hilda boops her on the nose. “You can’t take them off a wyvern before they’re ready. You have to wait for them to shed naturally.”

Enfys sighs. “That’ll take _forever_.”

“There are many things in life you have to wait for,” Sylvain informs her, adopting his wisest voice. “The hardest part is knowing when the time is right.”

He steals a look at Felix, who huffs through his nose and looks away with the tips of his ears turning pink. Under the table, Sylvain brushes his knuckles along Felix’s thigh and takes a bite of bread with his free hand.

Further teasing is interrupted by a commotion by the door.

“All mounted units! There’s a nearby village that’s under attack by the Empire! The Professor requires you to leave immediately!”

Sylvain curses and stands, food forgotten. “Shit. Felix—”

“I’ll ride with the Boar if I don’t ride with you,” he warns.

“Dad?”

“Fine. Ingrid, can you help him get my horse, I need to find someone to take care of Enfys.”

She nods sharply, following Hilda out of the dining hall. 

“Dad?”

The room is in chaos as people rush about, either helping their friends prepare to go to war or bracing themselves. Sylvain looks frantically for a familiar face that he knows won’t be going.

There’s a slam of tiny fists on the table. “Sylvain!”

He looks back and down at the face glaring up at him, her eyes dark with anger. Too late, he realizes she’d been calling for him all along. The knowledge that he’d ignored her sends a sword of ice through his heart.

“You’re _just_ _like_ Aunt Laothos. Finding someone new to— to _dump_ me on so you can go out and fight.” Her lip doesn’t so much as wobble. So young to have such steely nerves.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” he insists, throwing another frantic look around the room. “I’m trying to keep you _safe.”_

“So was she! And she left me here with _you_ _,_ and now _you’re_ leaving me too!”

With a grunt, Enfys rips off her cape and throws it to the side, storming off towards the pond - the opposite direction of the gate and the stables. Sylvain reaches for her and misses. “Enfys!” he snaps, nerves stretched to the breaking point as he stands in the middle of the room. He has orders. There’s no room for choices in a war.

In his panic, his eyes land on Seteth, slow to pull himself to his feet. The man had taken a nasty slice down his back in the last battle and was slower to recover than Sylvain had been. He won’t be joining them for sure, and—

“You know how to be a dad, right?” he asks, hand on Seteth’s shoulder.

“Yes,” he answers, then panics. “Wait, no, what are you talking about, I—”

Sylvain doesn’t have time for this. “Enfys went for the pond. I can’t go after her. Tell her I’m sorry and make sure she doesn’t drown, okay?”

He leaves in the middle of the man’s panicked denials, breaking into a sprint and leaping over the last table in his way. He’ll fix it when he gets back. If there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s apologize.

* * *

  
  


The units on horseback have to abandon their mounts at the mouth of the village; the entire town is staggered over multiple layers of stone, carved into the mountain with a steep drop on the south side, and rain is pouring down upon them. The going is too tough for anything with hooves, and anything without wings is forced to claw their way up the inclines and slopes slick with water and sharp with shattered stone.

There’s snatches of gold uniforms here and there - a pocket of Alliance resistance, which is why they didn’t hear of it until the Empire did. If it had been Faerghus against the wvyerns of the Empire they might have been slaughtered, but the excellent archers of the Alliance have kept their numbers alive.

In the downpour, Sylvain finds himself separated from the rest of the Garreg Mach forces. He’d been trying to save an injured Alliance rebel but had come seconds too late, his Fire magic fizzling out as she fell in front of them. As he’d turned, a wyvern had landed on a nearby house and torn it in half with its weight, blocking him off with a shower of lumber and rubble - and the first thing he thinks is that maybe Enfys has a point about wyverns being better than horses after all.

The second thing he thinks is that he wishes he’d gone after her before he left. Seen her one last time, just in case. 

“I saw those flashes as you tore my comrades apart,” snarls the man on the wyvern, axe in hand. “You’re a Faerghus noble, aren’t you? Crest bearer?”

They’re on the southeast edge of the town, on an empty narrow road running alongside a dizzying drop. Sylvain shrugs a shoulder, never taking his eyes off the blade. It looks light, with a short handle. “I’m glad you like my work,” he says absently, trying to goad the soldier into attacking first.

The Empire soldier snarls and flings the axe, but Sylvain ducks. He stays low and watches as it returns to the soldier’s gauntleted hand, snapped back as though on an elastic cord. A throwing axe. An enchanted one at that.

Underneath the rider, the wyvern snarls.

“I can throw this axe much longer than you can sling those fireballs, pretty boy.” The soldier grins. “Your red hair will look quite striking when the Empress mounts your head on the pikes outside of Enbarr.”

“If Edelgard wants to do that, she can come kill me herself,” he replies, lunging forward with his Lance. The wyvern rears back but not far enough; Sylvain keeps his momentum going with a surge of Crest magic and stabs the beast deep in the shoulder, hot blood spurting from the wound. 

His satisfaction doesn’t last. A lance, the blade thinner than his, snakes down and through the gap between his shoulder pauldron and his chestplate. He cries out, then grabs the lance and hauls, dislodging the Empire soldier from his seat in the saddle.

Sylvain stumbles backwards, his own Relic still stuck in the beast's side. As he watches, the wyvern rips out the Lance of Ruin with its teeth and tosses the weapon to the side. It lands on the ground, dangerously close to the edge and far out of reach.

In the middle of the chaos, faint and furious, he thinks he hears Felix scream his name.

“Not so big without your fancy Church weapon, huh?” The soldier snarls, standing between Sylvain and the edge of the cliff, backing him steadily up to the drop. He can feel it in the rain-spattered wind, the chill that cuts through his armor and the awful silence of empty space behind him.

There’s a flap of wings, and a second wyvern lands in the narrow stretch of street. Desperate, he takes his eyes off his opponent, hoping to see Hilda’s bright hair tinted purple in the stormy afternoon. But it’s a deep red uniform and a silver helmet, the colors of the end.

Another cry of his name, fainter now. Headed away. 

The whistle of the axe is the only thing that saves him. Sylvain’s attention snaps back just in time to duck, to stagger backwards and feel the gravel shifting under his armored boots. He slips, tilting forward and grabbing the edge of the cliff with desperate hands.

In his last seconds, he wonders if they’ll find his body; what they’ll say to his daughter when they return without him. Will she believe them if they say Sylvain died fighting, died trying to keep his promise and come back to her? Or will she assume that he left, as he’s done with dozens of other people he promised to love, and grow up with hatred in her heart just like Miklan?

No.

He won’t give up here. Not yet.

Sylvain’s boot finds purchase on the cliff, and he summons up his strength, coiling every muscle in his body like a spring, waiting for his opponent to draw closer. He’ll only have one chance to pull himself up, and it'll do him no good to throw himself onto his enemy’s lance.

There’s a sharp sound, then a wet crunch. The Empire soldier staggers into view, a blade sticking out of his chest as red as his Empress’ robes. Then he’s flung to the side, bouncing down the side of the rainy cliff.

Sylvain hauls himself up, hands first, then elbows, then knees digging into the loose stone on the edge of the mountainside, crawling across the ground. “Felix,” he breathes, “you have the best—“

It’s not Felix.

Standing over him is a woman younger than him, with dark hair and dark eyes, her red clothes soaked by the rain and her sword gleaming with the blood of her comrade.

“Do not orphan that child again,” she says, her voice low and trembling. “And get out of here before someone sees.”

“Laothos,” he breathes. She turns on her heel and storms away. “Wait. Wait, please I need to know—“

One foot on her wyvern’s saddle, she stops, the rain still sleeting down around them. Here, far away from everyone whose opinion ever mattered, he finds his voice.

“Why did you give Enfys to me?” Sylvain can feel his voice breaking under the weight of it all, the fear. “You know I’m not her father. Her real one.”

Laothos stares at him for a moment, her frown so similar to her nieces. When she speaks, her words are as straight and true as an arrow.

“Why did you accept her, then?”

The rain continues to fall, splattering loud into the muddy stone road beneath their feet. For one of the few times in his life, Sylvain is lost for words. And as the droplets ping off the plates of his armor and soaks into his clothes, so does his answer seep into his soul.

Because—

Laothos climbs aboard her mount, easing it into the air with a sharp whistle and diving over the edge, vanishing as quickly as she came into the storm. Another whistle and the first wyvern follows her, its flight unsteady with its injured wing. He watches them both in a daze.

“Sylvain!”

He turns and sees Ingrid’s pegasus hovering over the remains of the house, landing on the roof of the intact half. In the saddle, her rider sags with relief.

“I found him!” Ingrid shouts to someone below, then turns back to him. “The Empire is retreating. We won this one.”

He shakes his head, bringing himself back to the present. He’s alive. Everything else will have to be dealt with later. “We lose anyone?”

“Annette took a bad hit, but Marianne is with her and she’s going to make it. Everyone else of ours is okay.”

There’s a scramble of rubble shifting, then Felix emerges from the top of the crumbled wood and stone torn down by the wyvern. He looks small and terrified in the rain, but as he meets Sylvain’s eye the expression melts away, leaving behind relief.

“Good,” he says as Sylvain crosses the battlefield to meet him, stepping over the Lance of Ruin. “Your horse tried to bite me when we were saddling up, glad I don’t have to—”

The rest of his words are swallowed by Sylvain as he smashes their lips together in a kiss. No grace, no finesse, no courtly restraint; he buries both hands in Felix’s wet hair and mauls him with his mouth. Felix makes a noise in the back of his throat that doesn’t sound like a no, so Sylvain keeps going until a pebble hits the back of his armor.

“We are _still_ on a battlefield,” Ingrid scolds from above them. “I know you’ve been in love for years, but please show some restraint in front of the Alliance rebels.”

Sylvain gives her a sigh and a lazy salute. “Yes, sir,” he drawls, releasing Felix and watching him stagger to regain his footing on the rubble. The blush on his cheeks stands out brightly in the grey afternoon.

That will have to wait, too.

* * *

Sylvain and Felix give up their horse for the wounded, walking alongside instead. The remaining Alliance forces have agreed to join on as a battalion under the Faergus banner, and their leader has promised to reach out to Claude. The rain is easing up, gleams of sunlight showing through the clouds like the shimmering sides of a fish flashing in shallow water.

“Think we’ll get a rainbow?” Sylvain asks. Beside him, Felix grunts in a noncommittal reply.

The gates open for the returning party to plod in, bone weary and soaked through. In the back of the army, Sylvain looks to the sky, tilting his head to see if he can find a blaze of color somewhere among the grey and gold. As his eyes drift back down to earth, they catch on something bright.

Purple and white.

And orange.

He hands the reins to his horse off to Felix, moving through the army in a trance. Slowly at first, terrified that he’s wrong, but as he gets closer, each step becomes lighter with hope.

“Enfys?” he asks, under his breath; then louder as he quickens his pace, twisting through the army. “Enfys?”

The tiny shape at the doors to the entrance hall comes a little bit closer, small tentative steps; wobbling as it tries to make itself taller, looking through the masses of returning soldiers for something. For someone.

“Enfys!”

He reaches shaking fingers up to his sides, then his shoulder, unbuckling the straps to his breastplate as he breaks into a run.

_“Enfys!”_

The armor clatters behind him as he surges up the stairs, but he barely hears it as his daughter runs to meet him. He drops to his knees on the stone stairs and she leaps into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing.

“I’m home,” he says into the fur of her cape, struggling to get the words out. “Enfys. I— I’m home. And I’m— I—.”

“I missed you, Dad,” she says, and he feels hot tears soaking into his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

Sylvain closes his eyes and holds her tightly to him. “Yeah,” he manages through a tight throat, “me neither.”

They stay like that for a moment, the rain falling softer and softer around them as the clouds lighten and pass them by. He finally lets her go, pulling away just enough to wipe away her tears with his thumbs.

“Guess what, though?”

Enfys blinks, pulling herself together better than Sylvain himself. “What?”

“I think you’re right about wyverns,” he tells her. “They _are_ cooler than horses.”

And she smiles, finally, big and toothy and proud of herself and thank the goddess he’s already kneeling because it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen in his life. “Yeah?”

Sylvain rubs the heel of his hand across his cheek. “Yep,” he confirms, then stands and whisks her up in his arms. “Come on, wyvern princess, your clothes are soaked.”

She giggles quietly in his ear but lets herself be carried off, snug against his unprotected chest, her little heart beating steadily against his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on twitter, @Legendaerie!


	6. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m a MONSTER and forgot to drop a link to this LOVELY fanart of the previous chapter by my friend Vicky!
> 
> https://twitter.com/lightbenderlin/status/1251298106991423489?s=21
> 
> give them some love!!!

Normally, it’s Dimitri who would bang on his door hard enough to threaten to break it. Their Prince is the only one of his friends who still bothers to knock when mad at him; Ingrid and Annette will yell before they knock (Annette usually starts yelling in the stairway so he can hear her approaching), Felix opens the door with no warning, and very few other people get mad at him enough to look for him. 

So when he wakes up to Hilda beating on the solid oak door, he doesn’t know what to make of it.

“Hi?” he asks, leaning in the doorway, still a little out of it. He’d stayed up late reading to Enfys, then had to go out on a night patrol and didn’t get back to sleep until dawn. He yawns, reaching a hand up to stifle it, only to have the arm snatched away.

“Come with me now it’s the most important thing you’ll ever see,” she gabbles in a rush, dragging him half dressed down the stairs.

He shakes his head. “What?”

“Okay so yesterday I was helping Enfys make wyvern scale jewelry and she asked me if I was going to be her new mom.”

Sylvain stumbles. _“What?”_

Hilda waves her free hand as they weave through the building. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I told her that Felix was gonna be her new mom and she got all _disappointed,_ it was really cute. But Felix was there and I think he heard it so now he’s—“

The moment they step outside, her plan changes. As fast as she’s been dragging him outside, she doubles back and slams him against the wall. His heart leaps in his chest and he looks away from where her breasts are crushed against him. Before he can speak, she claps a hand over his mouth, leaning back to peer around the corner.

Under her hand, he clears his throat. Hilda presses a finger to her lips then ducks down, pointing around the corner to the courtyard. Above her, Sylvain follows suit.

Enfys, Felix, Annette and Lysithea are gathered at a tiny table just in front of the gazebo, decorated with flowers and teacups and more sweets than Sylvain has ever seen in his life. Little cakes dipped in fondant icing, tiny scones studded with candied fruit, streusel topped muffins and a dish of sorbet softening in the sun. Lysithea is declaring something as she holds up a tartlet with a cloud of toasted meringue perched on top - it looks like it’s made entirely of sugar.

As Sylvain watches, Enfys and Annette hold up matching tarts of their own. From here, he can see Lysithea step on Felix’s foot. The man sighs and picks up his own sweet, gently mimes a toast with the three girls; and then with only a moment's hesitation, places it in his mouth. Chews. Swallows.

But it’s the little smile he offers Enfys when she turns her attention on him that takes Sylvain out at the knees.

“Oh, _fuck,”_ he says out loud. Felix’s head snaps around, eyes wide, and Hilda groans.

“And there it goes.” 

Felix is frozen in place, color slowly rising in his face as Sylvain crosses the lawn, lightheaded.

“Hi, sweethearts,” Sylvain hears himself say. “You having fun?”

Enfys smiles and nods. “Yes! Lots of fun. And sweets.”

“Careful you don’t eat too many,” he warns her as he stands behind Felix’s chair, brushing his fingertips against rigid shoulders. “How about you, Fe?”

Felix says nothing. 

Annette, bless her, gives Sylvain the biggest grin. “Oh, he’s been having the _best_ time. It was all _his_ idea to come out here and have a party, too.”

“I picked the tasting menu,” Lysithea boasts. Her face is solemn but he can tell she’s in on it too by the little shake of laughter in her shoulders.

“Very nice. Any recommendations for me?”

“Try the scones,” Enfys says. “They have cinnon— sin— um.”

“Cinnamon?” 

“Yeah! Cinn-amon,” she echoes carefully. He watches her mouth the word a few more times under her breath. While she’s preoccupied and Annette breaks out charcoal from somewhere to write the word out, Sylvain takes the opportunity to lean down and whisper a few of the ways he’d like to be _incredibly thankful_ to Felix later.

Once Felix has turned an appropriate shade of red and has to grab the edge of the table, Sylvain leans back and grabs a couple scones.

“Well, I’ll let you finish your party. Try not to spoil your appetite, okay, Enfys?”

“Okay, Dad.”

Sylvain waves as he retreats back to his room, nibbling on the scone as he ascends the stairs. 

And right on cue, ten minutes later, the door to his bedroom opens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you SO MUCH for the incredible support you all have given me. this was really out of my comfort zone and I’m so glad that it’s made so many people so happy.
> 
> find me on Twitter, @Legendaerie !

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tell Me Pretty Lies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27403360) by [lightbenderlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightbenderlin/pseuds/lightbenderlin)




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